Danzig Passage (Zion Covenant)

by Bodie Thoene

  Zach’s face instantly reflected his own pain as he looked down at the bodies. Bare feet protruded from the sheet, making it simple to identify which was the body of a woman and which a man.

  Orde eyed the scene coolly, with the demeanor of a man who had seen such things many times before. He gestured toward the weeping women. “Get them out of here,” he instructed.

  The two clung more tightly to each other, as if to protest that they had the right to be here.

  “This is Sharon Zalmon’s sister,” Zach started to explain.

  “Then all the more reason for her to leave,” Orde said. He glanced around the room to where a young man leaned in a corner beside a tray of surgical instruments. He stared silently, but his face was a mirror of intense suffering. “What about him?” Orde asked. “Husband?”

  “Fiancé,” Zach replied.

  “All right,” Orde said with authority. “Any of you who are family or close friends will have to leave now.”

  Hostile eyes regarded him. “We are all either one or the other,” said a man who stood at the heads of the bodies. “There is no one in the entire settlement who is not a friend. And we are all like family.”

  Orde modified his command and searched each face for tears. He pointed to those who had been weeping and were now still sobbing. “Out, please. This is a battle, and we have work to do.”

  As if to back him up, Zach gently spoke to each one by name and requested that they leave the building. One by one they shuffled out past Orde, whom they regarded as an intruder to their grief. Seven men, including Moshe and Zach, remained.

  Orde slammed the door and then lifted the sheet from the faces of the fallen.

  Zach’s voice faltered as he named them. “Sharon . . . Zalmon. She is . . . was . . . twenty-one. From Poland.”

  Orde did not seem to notice that the ashen face below him was delicate and pretty. Blue eyes stared blankly up at the captain as he knelt to examine the wound. Flecks of blood were on her face, her short brown hair matted. A strangely peaceful smile rested on the still-pink lips.

  Five minutes of silence passed as Orde lifted the chin slightly and learned everything he needed to know. Then he turned his attention to the man.

  “Lazlo LaPierre.” Zach muttered the name, but none of that mattered to Orde. The method of killing was identical. This was the only detail of significance.

  “Quite professional,” he remarked as he tossed the sheet back over the two. “You say there was no sound?” He searched the faces of the men in the room who had found them.

  A small man with ruddy cheeks and a shock of black curly hair nodded once. “I was at the next post. I heard nothing. When Lazlo did not come on schedule, I sounded the alarm. Then some shots were fired.”

  “From our own men,” Zach added. “Suddenly everyone seemed to hear things everywhere outside the perimeter.” He gestured toward the bodies. “We found them. And the cut wire. It looks as if the alarm was given just at the moment Sharon fell. She was still . . . well, moving slightly when we found her.”

  Orde stared hard at the blood-soaked sheet. “And so the attackers fled.” Pushing his cap back on his head, he considered what it all meant. “And you did not send a patrol out after them?”

  Zach seemed startled by the question from an Englishman. After all, Captain Orde knew that the Jews within the British Mandate were not supposed to have weapons to fight with, let alone the means to pursue the enemy. “No. We brought our friends here. There are double guards at the perimeters now.”

  Orde seemed not to hear what Zach told him. He clasped his hands behind his back and paced up and down beside the bodies. “They were killed by the same fellow. I am certain of that. A professional. Not the sort of messy wound I’ve seen from the Muslim assassins. Not the same at all.” He paused and raised a finger. “I would say we have an excellent chance of catching them.”

  “Catching?” Zach blinked at him in amazement. “But we are . . . self-defense. Defense of this place is all we are permitted by law—”

  “Nonsense.” Orde gestured first at the bodies and then at Zach. The men in the crowded room suddenly seemed awake.

  Moshe Sachar stepped back and ran his fingers through his hair. He had dreamed of such a thing after his brother had been murdered. But he was not a real part of Hanita. He had never held a gun, and yet he wanted to go along. “I would like to help,” Moshe said.

  “Of course,” Orde said with a smile. “You know the area. You’ve been on a number of archeological digs in Galilee. That is why I brought you.”

  “But I thought we would have some training.” Zach looked concerned. He knew what lay in wait beyond Hanita at night. If a Jew left the settlement after dark, he did not come back.

  “Right,” Orde said briskly. “Training. We begin tonight.”

  ***

  The red silk-covered walls of Café Sacher glowed with soft candlelight. New patrons who had swept into Vienna from Germany on the first wave of the Anschluss crowded the tables. Most of the familiar faces of the old patrons had vanished from the opulent restaurant overnight as Austrians of power and influence had been arrested or forced into exile. Instead of the black dinner jackets and silk top hats of the after-concert crowd, the patrons wore uniforms adorned with medals of the Reich. Nonmilitary guests sported swastika lapel buttons and clicked their heels, giving the “Heil” in greeting.

  The faces in Café Sacher had changed indeed, and few remained to notice or mourn the change. Here and there a few foreign newsmen managed to procure a table on slow nights, but they were last to be served and were often spoken to with a distinctly cold, unwelcoming tone by the help. Things were not the same at all.

  But Café Sacher still had music, candlelight, and bright conversation. Still the very best food in the Greater Reich. Nazi soldiers and officers alike considered Vienna a most desirable city for duty.

  Many times wives and children remained behind in Germany, while mistresses conveniently transferred to clerical positions in Vienna. This was particularly true among members of the elite SS Corps, who were expected to provide the Reich and the Führer with the bounty of their own Aryan offspring. Often promotion and rank depended on the ability of a man to reproduce sons for the Fatherland. With such high expectations, therefore, SS Commander and Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler made it possible for a man to have a wife pregnant at home as well as a mistress within easy access of his duty assignments.

  For this reason Lucy Strasburg had been transferred from Munich to Vienna and was waiting anxiously at Café Sacher tonight.

  SS Major Wolfgang von Fritschauer was already two hours late for their scheduled rendezvous. He had warned her impatiently that he might be late this evening, that something important was brewing. He had been angry with her tears and her telephone calls, but he agreed to meet her anyway. Lucy found this comforting. Wolf was an important and busy man, yet he would come to meet her, to hear her news. Although he never said the words, she was certain of his love for her. He was two hours late, yes, but he was coming. His secretary had phoned in the reservation for their usual table and had warned the Sacher headwaiter that Fräulein Strasburg might be waiting a while and must be treated with all courtesy.

  Such a command from Wolfgang von Fritschauer was always taken seriously. Every few minutes an attentive waiter passed by and asked after her needs, warmed her coffee, and then went on as if it was not unusual for a beautiful young woman to be sitting alone in one of the finest cafes in Vienna. In the kitchen, of course, waiters exchanged looks and shook their heads in obvious disdain of Lucy and her arrogant SS officer. They had all seen her waiting for him dozens of times. He was a refined aristocrat. She was beautiful, yes, but definitely a country bumpkin from Bavaria. She did not even know which fork to use or what wine to drink with which course. No one doubted why the swaggering Nazi officer kept company with her. Only Lucy Strasburg seemed unaware.

  Whispers filled the kitchen:

  “Himmel! So this is th
e future of the Aryan race? Put two beautiful blond bodies together—one without a brain and the other without a soul! The Führer will have very pretty little idiots to run his Thousand-Year Reich!”

  “Do they all have to bring their harlots here? Why not meet them at a café in the Seventh District where the red lights are always burning?”

  “SS Major von Fritschauer does not meet her in a place like Sacher’s for her sake. He comes here because it is he who likes it, and she is too dumb to know his motives are not the purest adoration!”

  The whispers of truth may have been quiet, but the laughter that followed was uproarious.

  Tonight the waiters tossed a coin and vied for the pleasure of waiting on the mistress of Officer von Fritschauer. She was beautiful, after all, a delight to look at. Her dresses, selected by the major, were chosen to show off her perfect proportions; the waiters had overheard this bit of gossip from conversations that von Fritschauer had at dinners with fellow officers. He discussed her in the same way the aristocracy might discuss the attributes of a fine brood mare. He was envied by his comrades, who often expressed the hope that when he was finished with her they might have a turn with her. To this request, von Fritschauer always chuckled with contentment and wagged a forbidding finger. For pure pleasure, there was nothing to compare with his “little cow” in Vienna. They would have to find their own concubines, he said.

  Lucy was not only beautiful, she was also overly cordial to the waiters as Café Sacher. She called them by their first names and asked about families. She encouraged them to call her Fräulein Lucy until the major had overheard the offense and had demanded that the waiter be fired on the spot. She had intervened on the fellow’s behalf, but he simply disappeared one night after work. It was rumored that the major had accused him of being a Jew and of making improper advances to Fräulein Strasburg. From that moment on, the staff of Hotel Sacher treated Fräulein Strasburg as if she were a duchess. They overlooked her Bavarian peasant familiarity and answered her in single syllables.

  “How are your children, Fritz?”

  “Fine, Fraulein Strasburg.”

  “Are you staying in Vienna for the holidays, Johann?”

  “No, Fraulein Strasburg.”

  Over the weeks she had grown accustomed to the aloofness of the attendants. Still, she smiled and asked the questions as though she were talking to an old friend in her village market.

  Beautiful. Friendly. Ignorant. This was the final assessment of Lucy Strasburg by the all-seeing staff of Hotel Sacher. Tonight they might have added hopeful and anxious to their list.

  The diners scarcely noticed when the string quartet finished playing and left their chairs for a few minutes’ break. But Lucy noticed. This was the second break the musicians had taken since she arrived. Two and a half hours had passed, and Wolf had not come or even called.

  She glanced at her watch, a fine Swiss watch Wolf had given to her for her birthday. He told her that when she looked at it she should remember who she belonged to. It seemed that she spent a lot of time looking at the watch, waiting for Wolf. The doubts flooded over her in a wash of panic. Suppose he did not show up tonight? He had been very busy the last two weeks. He had not come to her apartment, and tonight he said he only had time for a quick meal. Suppose he had another girl? Suppose he would not be pleased with her news?

  The thought made her tremble. Nervously she wound the watch and stared bleakly toward the door of the restaurant. She was not hungry. Apprehension had driven away her appetite. She glanced down at the watch again and tried to remember who she belonged to—SS Major Wolfgang von Fritschauer, declared by the Führer himself to be a perfect example of German manhood. Devotion to the Fatherland kept him from her, not another woman! These thoughts suppressed her anxiety once again.

  The Little Austrian waiter Johann paused and bowed at her elbow. “Would you like more coffee, perhaps?”

  Lucy smiled nervously and nodded. She made yet another attempt at conversation. “The weather is getting very cold, isn’t it, Johann?”

  “Quite, Fräulein,” Johann agreed without looking at her face. He started to go.

  “Does it snow much this time of year in Vienna?” she asked, an edge of desperation in her voice. Could he hear it? Could he hear that she simply wanted to talk to someone? Anyone?

  “Sometimes, Fräulein,” he answered. Then he bowed slightly and smiled that properly distant smile as he gazed at her hands. “Will that be all, Fräulein?”

  She wanted to ask him to sit down, to talk a bit with her. But that was impossible, of course. Wolf had told her she must not speak to other men—waiters and grocers and such. They might get the wrong idea about her. And if they had the wrong idea about her, it was a reflection on his manhood. Wolf had been very angry with her when he explained these things. She was careful now about being too friendly.

  “Thank you, Johann.” She dismissed him and lifted her cup to her lips. The coffee was strong and very good, but Lucy only sipped it. Perhaps it was the coffee that made her hands shake. She should not drink so much coffee; it would not do for Wolf to see her hands tremble. Such a sign of weakness made him angry and sullen. He had been angry with her for crying, and this evening she would tell him how sorry she was, and that she would not cry again.

  The string quartet returned and flipped through the music on their stands. They began to play a song that Lucy knew Wolf liked. She did not know the composer, but he did. This music always made him smile, and she wished he was here to hear it right now.

  Just as she peered toward the arched entrance to the restaurant, Wolf strode in. His overcoat was unbuttoned, and drops of rain quivered on the visor of his peaked cap. He looked very handsome in his uniform, as always, but something smoldering in his eyes frightened her. His strong jaw was set, giving his face a hardness she had seen before. His ice-blue eyes seemed to look right through her relieved face as he spotted her and made his way through the tables to the corner where she waited.

  She remained seated, although she wanted to jump to her feet and kiss his hand in gratitude that he had come. He loved her after all! It did not matter that his face was grim and irritated. He would look at her and want her again; she knew it!

  She did not speak. He did not like it when she spoke first to him in public. Often he had things on his mind and did not want to be interrupted in his thoughts. She could tell by the look on his face that this was one of those nights.

  He removed his gloves and tossed them on the table. Then he took off his coat and gave it to the waiting attendant. He doffed his hat, smoothed back his thick, close-cropped blond hair, and sat down. He did not acknowledge that she was there. Maybe he was waiting to see if she remembered the rule about not disturbing his thoughts. He lit a thin cheroot and inhaled deeply before he crossed his legs and sat back to appraise her. His eyes appraised her royal blue knit dress and swept over on her softly curled golden hair, pausing at her throat, finally lingering on her breasts. Then he smiled slightly and spoke.

  “Well, Lucy, I have neglected you.”

  Tears of relief welled up in her eyes, but she controlled herself as he required. “I have missed you, Wolf,” she said softly. “I was hoping that tonight we could—”

  He interrupted her with a wave of his hand. “Have you ordered?”

  “No. I was waiting. Waiting for—”

  The edge of hardness returned to his face. “You should not have waited. I told you I might be late. There are important things happening tonight in the Reich. I had a sandwich at headquarters.”

  She flushed. He was unhappy with her. “I thought—”

  “It is best if you do not think,” he said, flicking the ash of his cheroot.

  She did not reply. Emotion was too close to the surface again. She should not have presumed. Wolf always told her not to presume anything.

  He continued as though speaking to a junior officer. “You said you had news for me?”

  This was not the way she had imagined tel
ling him. She bit her lip and looked at the flame of the candle for an instant. The music he liked was playing. Did he notice it?

  “Well? Really, Lucy. I am busy. You cannot imagine how difficult it was to get away. Tonight of all nights, you have to talk to me or die!”

  Her hands began trembling again. She put them on her lap so he would not see. She wished she could tell him how much she loved him, how much his harshness hurt her, especially now. She had hoped that she might give him the news while she was in his arms.

  He sighed impatiently and looked over his shoulder at the exit, as though he would stand up and leave.

  “Wolf,” she said in a cracking voice, “I have good news. Well, I hope you will think so.”

  “I could use good news.”

  “I am . . . we are . . . going to have a baby, Wolf.” She smiled hopefully. Had he not told her that more than anything he wanted to give her a child? His child? Had he not spoken of fulfilling her highest purpose as a woman?

  Wolf smiled at her, then let out a short laugh of satisfaction. He reached across the table and pulled her hand into his own strong grip, then touched her cheek with as much tenderness as he ever displayed. “A child?”

  She laughed too, but not too loud. The tension melted. “Yes! You are pleased, Wolf? I can tell you are pleased.”

  “Pleased! It will mean a promotion. I told you. A raise in my salary. I was afraid something was wrong with you, but you really are my good little cow, aren’t you?”

  Lucy did not hear his words, only the tone of his voice. Wolf was happy with her. He was happy with the thought that she would bear him a child. She had nothing at all to worry about. They would be married in a civil ceremony at the Rathaus, and no one would even think twice about the fact that she was pregnant beforehand. Such things were common in the Reich these days. Her parents would not know until the matter was all settled. And then they would be glad that their daughter had married an aristocrat and an officer. The reason would not bother them once she and Wolf were married. And if her family insisted, she would ask Wolf if they might also find a priest to marry them a second time!